Who was this mysterious man with the fatherly visage? He was the man who brought the Republican Party back from the Goldwater debacle.
Goldwater had moved Dean Burch into the national party chair, and after the election, the Mainstream Media portrayed the Republican Party as the Dean Burch Society. Burch left, and the party elders brought in Ray Bliss from Ohio to take the helm.
Ray Bliss (1907-81) had spent a decade in Ohio as the state party chair, and he found the national party in tatters. Traditionally, the Republicans had been an executive party, a top-down party. Bliss began the long and difficult task of turning the party into a bottom-up party by organizing at the county level, and then organizing upward. He went into the business community to recruit people to run for office, and as a result, in 1966 the Republicans fielded the best team of candidates since 1948. Thanks to Bliss and Republican victories in the congressional elections, the Great Society's progress was stopped by a Congress where Republicans and Southern Democrats would work to freeze Johnson in his tracks. Johnson's last two years would be taken up with a war that would destroy him.
It was Bliss' superior organizing skills that got Richard Nixon elected two years later. Quiet unassuming men often change history.
He was born Louis Jacob Weertz (1924-2011) in Omaha. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he decided to stay in the military and earned his degree while still serving. Upon leaving the Navy, he enrolled at Julliard to study jazz piano.
Radio announcer Dennis James had found a niche in TV as the host of "Chance of a Lifetime." Louis won on one particular weekly show, and David Kapp, owner of Kapp Records, signed him, giving him the name of Roger Williams.
"Autumn Leaves" was his first hit in 1955, earning him a Gold Record, and this would be his last major entry on the charts.
He was performing until a week before his death at age 87 from pancreatic cancer.